


From dark to light

by InexhaustibleSourceOfMagic



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV), wayhaught - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InexhaustibleSourceOfMagic/pseuds/InexhaustibleSourceOfMagic
Summary: Just a little Drabble on Nicole with a little backstory, nothing special really. Sorry I suck at summaries





	From dark to light

She knows the process, having lived with death for the majority of her life, its first visit came at five years old when she watched the dark smother the light inside her Nanna, and take her by the hand one night when she was sleeping. She can remember a white box covered in lilac and soft pink flowers, and the gentle hum of melodies from days long passed. Then, she was left with memories.

The second visit hadn't been as solemn.

No.

The second visit, had come during her teens, when Nicole had done enough maturing to know exactly what death does to a person. How it can take someone too early, its patience not a virtue but a rushed demanding of payment and only a life would do. She knew death had many names, many forms, accidental, untimely, unfortunate...planned. It was the latter that visited the year she turned sixteen.

She didn't see it sneak into her home until it was too late, its hands placed firmly around the shoulders of her older brother, as it led him away, from life... from her. She had adored Rye, spent the compulsory years caught between tolerance for him and his immaturity, and absolute adoration of him. It had taken her years to realise that of all the people in her life, she loved him most and it took it the rest of her teen years and her newly adulthood to understand just how much.

Rye had been the one person she could talk to, on nights when she felt like the world really just wasn't made for her. On days when she would run home from school, taking the back-roads to avoid the route taken by the school bus filled with banging fists and feet, and the heartbreaking chants of “Dyke” and “Freak”, he would be waiting for her at home. Sitting on the bottom step that lead to their front door, a stone in his hand and safety in the shelter of his embrace.

“Tell the stone...” he would say, placing it in her hand, “Tell the stone your problem, then throw it away... they'll follow too”.

Nicole believed this, because every word that fell from her brothers mouth in his later years felt like gospel to her. Because every time she wrapped her lean fingers around the cratered porous weight in her hand and squeezed she could feel relief wash over her. Because in Nicoles' eyes, her brother knew the answers to everything, past, present and all the shit in between.

He had the ability to make everything feel like it was definite, he had a smile that made you feel loved, and a heart that made you feel respected and a love that made you feel whole. He was the best big brother, anyone could ever have asked for, and then he was gone.

Nicole hadn't noticed, how as the years passed he had grown heavy, she cursed herself afterwards for not feeling the weight when he held her to his chest, protective and supportive in spite of what he was dealing with. She hadn't noticed the holes in his exterior, the heavy secrets he carried in the dark circles under his eyes. Failed test, incomplete projects, letters further away from the awesome he deserved as grades and the final straw in his dismissal from the football team.

She hadn't noticed, the soft pink jagged pathways, on the inside of his forearms.

No.

These were all holes she discovered after it was too late. Not one to want to see imperfection in something that was so perfect to her, it had shocked her when she finally saw for herself what had become of him when Death was ready to let the living say goodbye.

She hadn't been able to save him, but Nicole knows that in all honesty anything Rye set his mind to, he accomplished. She didn't bother with screaming at the infinite abyss of nothing surrounding her, asking why he then didn't try harder to stay with her. She knew that would be selfish of her, and if there was one thing Rye wasn't it was selfish.

Instead, she took it upon herself to continue to push forward with the strength her brother had instilled in her and on the day it came to finally say her goodbyes, she made him a promise. 

She went home, and fell asleep with tear stained eyes, woke the next morning and got herself ready. Throwing his backpack over her shoulder, she headed outside and she rode the school bus, her hand fastened tightly around a stone. Only this time, she didn't let it go, this was different than the other stones, this one was perfect. A solid, gleaming, shining example of perfection. This stone, she held onto for years to come.

Nicole doesn't tell Waverly, or anyone else that she isn't afraid to die because for years she was afraid to live.

She can feel the weight of her girlfriend above her, despite being unconscious, she can feel the gentle squeeze of her hands, and the warmth of Waverlys breath on her neck. She listens because its all she can do, she hears the puff of air, as Waverly lowers herself into a seat at her bedside and then the soft clunk of something hitting the ground.

She doesn't see Waverly look to the ground, her hand moving across the floor and wrapping around the soft pink stone that had been rubbed into a heart shape by the hands that held her own heart. She doesn't see the confused look on Waverlys face as she realises it fell from her own coat pocket and dawns on her that Nicole must have slipped in there weeks ago. She doesn't see anything but she hears the soft sobs that emanate from the girl at her beside and with everything she has left inside her, even as death approaches her with hands outstretched she manages a small movement. A shake of the head, and then a mumble of words pass her lips and Waverly looks up.

“Tell the stone your problems, then throw it away... they'll follow too”.

One day Nicole knows she will tell Waverly about Rye, about her all too seemingly perfect childhood, and her brother she so desperately wishes she hadn't lost. She knows she won't tell Waverly that she's not afraid of death, because she wasn't until she realised it would mean not getting to live, with her.


End file.
